Reset to Today

To access the FCA Handbook Archive choose a date between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2004.

Content Options:

Content Options

Alternative versions

  1. Point in time
    2024-12-18

Article 13 Automated surveillance system to detect market manipulation(Article 17(1) of Directive 2014/65/EU)

  1. (1)

    An investment firm shall monitor all trading activity that takes place through its trading systems, including that of its clients, for signs of potential market manipulation as referred to in Article 12 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014.

  2. (2)

    For the purposes of paragraph 1, the investment firm shall establish and maintain an automated surveillance system which effectively monitors orders and transactions, generates alerts and reports and, where appropriate, employs visualisation tools.

  3. (3)

    The automated surveillance system shall cover the full range of trading activities undertaken by the investment firm and all orders submitted by it. It shall be designed having regard to the nature, scale and complexity of the investment firm's trading activity, such as the type and volume of instruments traded, the size and complexity of its order flow and the markets accessed.

  4. (4)

    The investment firm shall cross-check any indications of suspicious trading activity that have been generated by its automated surveillance system during the investigation phase against other relevant trading activities undertaken by that firm.

  5. (5)

    The investment firm's automated surveillance system shall be adaptable to changes to the regulatory obligations and the trading activity of the investment firm, including changes to its own trading strategy and that of its clients.

  6. (6)

    The investment firm shall review its automated surveillance system at least once a year to assess whether that system and the parameters and filters employed by it are still adequate to the investment firm's regulatory obligations and trading activity, including its ability to minimise the generation of false positive and false negative surveillance alerts.

  7. (7)

    Using a sufficiently detailed level of time granularity, the investment firm's automated surveillance system shall be able to read, replay and analyse order and transaction data on an ex-post basis, with sufficient capacity to be able to operate in an automated low-latency trading environment where relevant. It shall also be able to generate operable alerts at the beginning of the following trading day or, where manual processes are involved, at the end of the following trading day. The investment firm's surveillance system shall have adequate documentation and procedures in place for the effective follow-up to alerts generated by it.

  8. (8)

    Staff responsible for monitoring the investment firm's trading activities for the purposes of paragraphs 1 to 7 shall report to the compliance function any trading activity that may not be compliant with the investment firm's policies and procedures or with its regulatory obligations. The compliance function shall assess that information and take appropriate action. Such action shall include reporting to the trading venue or submitting a suspicious transaction or order report in accordance with Article 16 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014.

  9. (9)

    An investment firm shall ensure that its records of trade and account information are accurate, complete and consistent by reconciling as soon as practicable its own electronic trading logs with records provided by its trading venues, brokers, clearing members, central counterparties, data providers or other relevant business partners, where applicable and appropriate considering the nature, scale and complexity of the business.